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This article examines how the parental divorce process affects youth substance use at various stages relative to the divorce. With child-fixed-effect models and a baseline period that is long before the divorce, the estimates rely on within-child changes over time. Youth are more likely to use alcohol 2-4 years before a parental divorce. After the divorce, youth have an increased risk of using alcohol and marijuana, with the effect for marijuana being 12.1 percentage points in the two years right after the divorce ( p = .010). The magnitudes of the effects persist as time passes from the divorce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether youth cigarette use increases during weak economic periods (as do youth alcohol and drug use). The data come from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. With repeated measures over the 1997-2006 period, for almost 9,000 individuals, the samples include 30,000++ teenagers (15-19 years) and 30,000++ young adults (20-24 years). Logit models with state and year controls are estimated. The results indicate that teenagers and young adults increase cigarette use when the economy is weaker, implying that the current financial crisis has likely increased youth cigarette use relative to what it would have otherwise been. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: There has been limited research on how recessions (or more generally, the strength of the economy) affect drug use and the related outcome of drug selling. This is especially important, given the current economic crisis. This paper aims to use a conceptual framework, previous research, and new research to predict how the current economic crisis may be affecting youth drug selling and drug use. Methods: A conceptual framework to understand how a recession could affect youth drug selling and drug use is presented, along with a review of the literature on empirical investigations on how the strength of the economy affects these behaviours among teenagers. In addition, new analyses for young adults are presented. Results: The conceptual framework postulates that a recession would have direct positive effects on the prevalence of youth drug selling but ambiguous direct effects on youth drug use. The conceptual framework also postulates that drug selling and drug use are inter-connected at the individual level and the aggregate level. Thus, any effect of a recession on one would likely affect the other in the same direction. The limited empirical evidence indicates that both drug selling and drug use among youth are higher when the economy is weaker. Conclusions: The current economic crisis will likely increase both youth drug selling and drug use relative to what they would have otherwise been. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Much research has focused on the proximate determinants of weight gain and obesity for adolescents, but not much information has emerged on identifying which adolescents might be at risk or on prevention. This research focuses on a distal determinant of teenage weight gain, namely changes in the economy, which may help identify geographical areas where adolescents may be at risk and may provide insights into the mechanisms by which adolescents gain weight. This study uses a nationally representative sample of individuals, between 15 and 18 years old from the 1997 US National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, to estimate a model with state and year fixed effects to examine how within-state changes in the unemployment rate affect four teenage weight outcomes: an age- and gender-standardized percentile in the body-mass-index distribution and indicators for being overweight, obese, and underweight. I found statistically significant estimates, indicating that females gain weight in weaker economic periods and males gain weight in stronger economic periods. Possible causes for the contrasting results across gender include, among other things, differences in the responsiveness of labor market work to the economy and differences in the types of jobs generally occupied by female and male teenagers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]